Living Goods (1966)
Living goods is a German DEFA film by Wolfgang Luderer from 1966 based on an authentic case.
action
After the Hungarian government no longer appeared reliable to the allied Germany, the German troops entered Hungary in March 1944 and immediately set up a collaboration government under Döme Sztójay . A special task force of the RSHA led by SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann came with the German invasion troops with the task of initiating the " final solution " and of supervising the implementation by the Hungarian authorities. An eight-member Judenrat was set up in Budapest to enforce the German measures within the Jewish community. At that time, Jewish community life had already ceased to exist for Jews outside Budapest. Another task of these Jewish organizations was to ensure the complete transfer of Jewish assets. The new government passed over 100 laws to completely exclude Jews from economic and cultural life. Jewish-owned businesses were closed and valuable items were confiscated.
At the same time, SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Andreas Becher moved into a villa in Budapest to buy equipment and horses for the SS-Reiterstandarte. During a tour of the house he saw the precious treasures in the inventory and learned that the Jewish house owner Dr. Chorin represents a work that belongs to the Weiss family, which is also Jewish and can be compared with the Krupp company in Germany. He let Dr. Chorin, who was already in prison, came to himself and offered to save the Weiss family, their relatives, all shareholders and himself from the extermination camps if he left the work to him in trust for 25 years. In addition, Becher held out the prospect of emigration to neutral countries for all concerned. All concerns and fears Dr. Chorins were cleared of cups and this way “of their own free will” got the big company. Since this trade worked, SS-Obersturmbannführer Becher continued to protect Jewish citizens from the extermination camps for money and jewelry, following the motto “people for goods”. Here he also got the support of the Judenrat, which did not do this in all cases unselfishly. He only found an opponent in SS-Obersturmbannführer Eichmann, who wanted to send all Jews to the extermination camps. But Eichmann found no way against Becher's relationships.
With the amounts of money and valuables brought to Switzerland and elsewhere, Becher founded several trading companies after the war. He was never held accountable for his actions until the end of his life.
production
Living goods were shot in black and white and in total vision by the artistic working group " Heinrich Greif " . The outdoor shots were taken in Budapest and the surrounding area. The focus of this film based on an authentic case is the past of the businessman Kurt Andreas Becher, who was living undisturbed in the Federal Republic of Germany at the time .
Before the film went into normal play, there were four special screenings:
- June 10, 1966: As a contribution by DEFA to the 8th Workers' Festival of the GDR in the Thalia Film Theater Potsdam - Babelsberg .
- June 23, 1966: Festive premiere at the Forum Kino in Berlin-Köpenick in the presence of the filmmakers.
- September 1, 1966: For the reopening after renovation in the Venus cinema in Berlin-Alt-Hohenschönhausen .
- September 9, 1966: Official Berlin premiere at the Volkshaus cinema in Berlin-Lichtenberg .
criticism
“The film cannot deny that its creators are the creators of the television Pitaval series . This becomes clear again and again, and this is where the weaknesses of film lie where film and television-appropriate artistic means of expression were not carefully distinguished. So knew z. For example, with the existing template, neither the cameraman nor the director start much with the wide screen (the film was shot in total vision). "
“Everything that is shown in this film is authentic and can be documented; Faithfulness to the facts goes so far that the construction of a dramaturgically closed plot is dispensed with and the fantasy that paints the sober factual material is limited to the dialogues and the details of the scenes: this has been demonstrably done, and something like this could have happened in detail - so the principle of the film, which however did not turn out to be a good film. Because he does not consistently follow the path of documentary reconstruction of the events or the deepening of human conflicts, he gets stuck in mediocre feature film amendments, and only rarely does it succeed in making the terrible situation visible, certainly not from the visual point of view, only in the Play of individual actors. "
The lexicon of international films called the film a mediocre, dialogue-heavy feature film that fails to reveal the inhumanity of that era; in the conception and the artistic implementation it is full of defects.
literature
- Living goods In: F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 347-348.
Web links
- Live seafood products in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Live goods at filmportal.de
- Live goods at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ Günter Sobe in the Berliner Zeitung of June 14, 1966; P. 6
- ↑ Helmut Ulrich in the Neue Zeit of June 16, 1966; P. 4
- ↑ Living goods. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .